by Debora Geary
Just for a year. Witchlings with the telltale signs of astral magic grew out of it, or developed mature powers. You just had to keep them alive long enough for it to happen.
One year. Twelve months. A million breaths.
A long, gray eternity.
Morgan’s fussing interrupted his thoughts. Bloody hell. Marcus reached for changing supplies. Maybe he could just mark the time against poopy diapers. His brain refused to do the math. Anything involving poop and several zeros was far too frightening to contemplate.
And Jamie was right. One breath at a time might work in yoga class, but it was the fastest way to annihilation in Realm. Smart players had strategies and fallbacks and several layers of attack moving at the same time.
He snagged one of Morgan’s feet right before it created poop catastrophe. Who was he kidding—he couldn’t even plan a diaper change without incident. “Hold still, creature, or we’ll have to give you two baths in one day.”
With fast hands, he got the new diaper on and the old one sealed away in three Ziploc bags and a containment spell. And then reached down for the little girl babbling happily in their dungeon between the rocks. He held her up to his nose, caught, as always, by the humor in her eyes. “What am I going to do with you?”
She hiccupped, and a giggle spilled out.
He held her steady and waited—maybe she’d do it again. Lavender eyes stared at him solemnly, feet waving quietly in the wind.
“That one was an accident, was it?” He had the sudden, bizarre urge to see if there were more hiding inside her somewhere. Carefully, he nuzzled his nose into her belly and blew.
What came out sounded far more like whale farts than the raspberries Lizzie had blown. Morgan looked at him in wide-eyed surprise. Unwilling to be outdone by a six-year-old, Marcus tried again—and got a grin.
Getting closer.
One more time, Marcus blew against her belly—and this time, the stars aligned. Giggles ignited in Morgan’s toes, a great shaking mess of them.
Marcus held her out at arm’s length and felt something similar rising from his own toes. Life, it seemed, was contagious. He pulled her in close and blew one last time.
They were right. It was time to act.
Even if he had no idea what to do.
~ ~ ~
Sophie watched as Lizzie dropped the last handful of chamomile in her brew. Her trainee looked up. “That should work. Do you think it needs anything else?”
Sophie leaned over and sniffed the contents of the huge pot on the stove, trying not to wince. It smelled atrocious. “What do you think?” Part of the job of a healer was to know when to quit—and Lizzie’s concoctions still suffered badly from overkill.
“Maybe some mint to make it smell better.”
Even mint wasn’t going to chase off the odor of year-old gym socks, but it was a laudable thought. “If you made this again, how could you prevent the stinkiness?”
Lizzie’s head cocked to the side. Sophie turned off the stove—no point burning smelly gym socks while her student was lost in thought. Mike had high tolerance for most healer shenanigans, but he had a sensitive nose.
One more stir and Lizzie grinned. “I could let them sniff some of Gran’s skunk remedy first, and then nobody would notice how this one smelled.”
Sophie tried not to laugh—Aunt Moira’s skunk remedy was urban legend, but a very effective one. Nothing got patients to drink something foul more quickly than threatening them with the one that was worse. “That’s one approach, cutie, but we modern witches sometimes try to do things more subtly.”
Her student headed for the cookie jar. “Why?”
“Well, in the old days, healer brews were usually the only choice if you wanted to feel better. These days, people have more options.” Doctors and pharmacies and little pills that sometimes worked miracles and sometimes masked the real problems. “The old ways need to adapt.”
Lizzie looked at her sideways. “Gran doesn’t think that.”
Oops. Sticky territory. “She believes in balance, and in respecting the old ways. That’s important, and it’s a good place for every witchling to start.”
“I know, I know. Feet firmly planted in the traditions.” Lizzie rolled her eyes and looked down at her bare toes. “I think they like running better, though.”
Sophie grinned at the broad hint. “Okay, lesson’s over. Go play on the beach, or whatever it is that has you all antsy.”
“I get to go play with Morgan.” Lizzie started stuffing herb jars back onto the shelf in a six-year-old version of clean-up.
Ah. Her student had fallen in particular love with the village’s newest resident. “Is Marcus still trying to make you change all the diapers?”
“Nope.” A lid slammed down on the pot. “He’s getting pretty good at all that stuff.”
That was fascinating—and odd. Rumors of Marcus’s sudden competence had been circulating for two days, but no one had any idea how it had happened.
Lizzie tilted her head again. “Is he Morgan’s daddy now?”
Sophie wondered briefly why the hardest questions always came at the end of lessons. “He’s taking care of her, so he does a lot of the same things daddies do.”
Lizzie frowned. “That just makes him a babysitter.”
“Well, he’s also her guardian. You remember the woman who came to visit us? She put Marcus in charge of making sure Morgan is safe and happy.”
“He doesn’t hate that so much anymore.” Small fingers touched a droopy flower, perking it up. “He likes Morgan a lot now, even if he still growls sometimes.”
Being a parent was a journey, and none of them were entirely clear just yet where Marcus stood. “That’s good. It’s a lot easier to take care of a baby if you love them.” She tugged on a stray pigtail. “If you weren’t all so cute, we’d feed you to the fishes.” It was a threat oft repeated in Fisher’s Cove.
“Morgan’s way too cute to feed to the fishes.” Lizzie giggled. “They can have Sean, though.”
The first person who tried to dump Sean into the briny deep would instantly face the wrath of their smallest water witch, but Sophie kept that knowledge to herself.
“I think Marcus will love Morgan soon.” Lizzie picked up her backpack. “She still makes him sad a lot, though.”
Sophie reached over to hug the bright and far-too-aware girl who had adopted Morgan as her baby sister. And hoped fiercely that there weren’t oceans of sadness yet to come.
~ ~ ~
Marcus looked up and growled. Quiet invaders were no less welcome than their noisy counterparts, and Lizzie had left only minutes ago. Receding footsteps suggested his point had been made. Morgan was finally sleeping, and he was supposed to be coming up with some grand master plan to keep her safe.
So far, he had exactly nothing.
The scuffling sounds returned outside his doorway. Interloper, or intrepid mouse—either way, he wanted them gone.
Instead, he found Kevin, adding another pile of dusty books to a very precarious pile. Marcus grabbed the newest ones before the entire enterprise came crashing to the ground and woke up his purple-eyed master. “What are all these—you running away from home?”
Kevin’s smile was tentative—an unusual sight these days. Growls had ceased to scare him some time ago. “I heard you were trying to figure out how to help Morgan.”
Yes. A project he intended to keep children well away from. Realm’s gossip chain rivaled the one in Fisher’s Cove. “I don’t need your help, youngling. Or your dusty books.”
“Gran says all the knowledge of the world can be found in books.”
Gran hadn’t learned about the Google. “Some questions don’t have answers.”
Brown eyes gleamed, undeterred. “No—but there are still clues.” He took a deep breath. “Astral travel is an old power, so I started reading the old books.”
Gods. The history of travelers was full of death and misery. “This isn’t work for children.” It broke grown men.<
br />
“I’m a witch.” Said quietly, in a tone reminiscent of Moira at her least biddable. “And I know how to find things in books.”
“We don’t know how to save them, Kevin.” Marcus willed a modicum of kindness into his voice—the boy was just trying to help. “We’ve never known.” One of the oldest of magics, and one of the least understood.
“I know.” Sadness shadowed the boy’s mind. “I didn’t realize there were so many.”
Marcus did. He’d learned every last one of their names as a child, looking for some clue, some way to find Evan and bring him back. “Put away the books—there’s nothing to find.” He ran a hand through the boy’s hair. “I was a reader once.”
Kevin pulled out a sheaf of paper from his backpack. “I made a list. All the travelers I could find, and where they lived, and what happened to them.” He took a deep breath. “I think I found something.”
There were pages of notes. All written in careful childish hand, mute evidence of many hours spent deciphering cryptic old texts. Days of work, started long before anyone else had even begun to think straight.
It wasn’t in Marcus to send him away unheard. He would listen—and then perhaps the boy could be convinced to master the fine art of diaper changing instead of spending useless hours in the bowels of witch history. “What did you find?”
“It’s easier to see this way.” Kevin reached into his backpack one more time, and then started unfolding the rattiest map Marcus had ever seen. “South America fell off while I was working, but you don’t really need that to see the pattern.”
South America wasn’t the only continent in serious jeopardy. And several countries in Africa hadn’t been called by those names for fifty years. “Where’d you find this?”
“Joey’s grandma’s attic.” Kevin’s eyes gleamed with treasure found. “No one else wanted it, so she said it was okay if I took it home.”
Joey’s grandma’s attic had been feeding small-boy fantasies since before Marcus was born—he was fairly certain she planted a new crop of treasures up there every spring.
“Do you see the pattern?” Kevin stood calm, but his mind was practically zinging.
Marcus stopped trying to decipher African countries and attempted to pay enough attention to reward Kevin’s efforts. There were little brown X’s scrawled all over the map. “What are all the markings?”
Kevin nodded in approval—apparently the question was on the right track. “Those are where travelers lived. Every time I found a town, I marked it on the map.” He frowned. “The records aren’t very good—I couldn’t find a location for everyone.”
No doubt. Not to mention that cities had changed a fair amount over the last several hundred years. Marcus tried to focus. There was a fair collection of X’s in the east. “Lots on the coast here.”
Kevin hovered, trying not to explode. “Where else?”
Marcus looked. “Ireland.” Not exactly a surprise—half of recorded witch history happened on that small green island.
“Where else?”
Marcus reached a finger out slowly and touched a quiet brown X on the coast of Nova Scotia. Evan.
“Sorry.” Kevin looked down at his shoes. “I wanted to include all the data. It’s what good researchers do.”
There was a reason he’d been born to crusty bachelorhood. He hurt feelings just by breathing. “What did you find, witchling?” Marcus cursed the gruffness in his voice—and had no bloody idea what to replace it with.
“All the travelers…” Kevin’s voice was barely audible now. “They all lived near water.”
Water. Mists. Marcus’s eyes sped over the bedraggled map. All the X’s. All within a stone’s throw of the ocean. Most witches lived near water, but not all. He felt the pattern of the X’s coalesce into certainty in his brain.
Astral power only worked near the water.
One more time, Marcus touched the lonely X on coast of Nova Scotia.
“Will it help?”
Kevin’s glasses sat askew on his nose. Gently, Marcus reached out to straighten them. And blessed the boy who had found him something to work with.
He had a clue. A thread. A place to start.
And now, by the gods, they would have a plan.
Chapter 14
Chaos in Realm wasn’t all that unusual. But as Jamie surveyed his domain from a convenient hilltop, it was clear this wasn’t the usual kind of bedlam.
Marcus was remodeling—and he’d recruited half of the coders in Realm to do it, including most of those who were usually trying to depose him as the number-three player in the land.
And he was revamping part of Moira’s Meadow.
Which required serious chutzpah—and admin-level access. Jamie squinted as a familiar figure walked into the meadow. Or a world-class hacker. Damn. After ten years of invisibility, Daniel was suddenly haunting Realm again. And while Nell’s husband had admin access, it amused him not to use it.
Time to get a closer look. Jamie ported down to the field where chaos currently reigned—and nearly tripped over Warrior Girl, setting some kind of multi-layer warding spell in place. Which would have been really nice coding if his leg weren’t halfway through the spell.
Ginia giggled. “Don’t move, Uncle Jamie, and I’ll have you untangled in a jiffy.”
That would be good. Glitter had ruined two sets of armor already this week—hanging out with Warrior Girl was a dangerous occupation. “What the heck’s going on?”
She grinned. “Uncle Marcus is building a nursery.”
A what? Jamie scanned the field. “A nursery needs a moat?”
“That was Aervyn’s idea.” Ginia unwove spell threads as she talked. “Uncle Marcus vetoed the alligators, though. Too many teeth.”
Aervyn was loose in Realm? That couldn’t possibly end well.
Jamie tried to remember he was in charge—that’s what he told investors all the time. “Who gave him admin access?”
“Mia. Or maybe Shay. Somebody did.” His niece cheerfully dismissed a major security breach. “Marcus says we can make one of the rooms pink and glittery from head to toe if we want.”
Bribed by glitter. He needed to have a serious discussion with his child labor, but first he needed to chat with the rogue player who was running this show.
Getting there was tricky. He encountered a singing Moira, planting neat beds of blue flowers. Mia and Shay, installing a lagoon that looked suspiciously like the one he’d just coded for his private Realm retreat. Daniel and Kevin, directing a geek brick-laying crew. And Sophie, muttering something dire at the rocks underfoot.
By the time he got to the guy in charge, Jamie was pretty sure he was the most poorly informed witch on either coast. “Ahoy the captain. What’s going on here?”
Marcus shrugged. “It was either this or move to Kansas. This seemed easier.”
“Kansas?” Jamie had sudden visions of tornadoes. The last time one of those had shown up in Realm, it had spread purple poop over four kingdoms. “Why?”
“Far away from the water.” Marcus pointed a delivery of rocks in the direction of one of the castle walls. “Where have all the travelers lived?”
He was failing witch Twenty Questions. “Not in Kansas?”
Marcus’s eyes sparked with victory. “Exactly. Kevin figured it out—they all live near water. The mists. Water must be some kind of conduit for whatever power makes astral travel possible.”
Jamie blinked. It made an eerie kind of sense. “So you’re taking Morgan away from water?” Virtual reality was about as far away from water as you could get—of the real kind, anyhow.
“Only at night.” Marcus tossed an incantation cube in the direction of a pile of rocks and hummed in approval as they helpfully rearranged themselves into a tower. “We’ll spend the days in Fisher’s Cove and sleep here.”
And most of the citizens of Realm were blowing all their game points to help him do just that. Jamie was catching on fast, but his head was having trouble wrapping a
round a few of the salient details. “And you need a castle for this?”
Marcus rolled his eyes, alight with humor. “I asked for assistance. It was perhaps a mistake. The crew is rather zealous.”
They certainly were. But it was the first part of what he’d said that had Jamie’s attention. Marcus’s high mountain keep was the fanciest private zone in Realm. And instead of retreating there, he’d brought Morgan to the very heart of Realm’s communal strength—and asked for help. That wasn’t the act of a crusty old bachelor witch.
It was the act of a father.
One whose girl-child was about to have the fanciest castle in Realm. Jamie turned, surveying the hive of activity. “How can I help?”
Humor fled, and in its place came the battle-worn general. “Help Ginia with the wards. I need the best protection spellcoding can buy.”
Well, you didn’t kick a guy into action and then rain on his first big idea, even if it was re-landscaping half your virtual world. Jamie saluted, and looked around for Warrior Girl. He had a couple of ideas for that layering spell.
And then Kevin pushed a wheelbarrow full of bricks by, and Jamie knew he had one thing do to first. He looked back over at Marcus. Have you thanked Kevin?
The general was back to throwing incantation spells at walls. What?
Jamie resisted the urge to bonk him over the head with a mental two-by-four. Clearly, plenty of crusty-old-bachelor brain was still alive and kicking. He’s a kid about to explode with pride that he brought something important to the table. Try something new. Thank him.
Marcus looked at Kevin’s retreating back and scowled. And what magic tells you this?
Not magic, replied Jamie wryly. Experience. I was kid brother to a magical menace a fair amount like Sean.
His companion snorted. “You didn’t have a fraction of Kevin’s common sense.”
Probably true. “I had more than Devin, though.” Most days.
“Doubtful.” But Marcus was looking at Kevin with new eyes. “Living in the shadows, is he?”
It occurred to Jamie, far too late, that there had been another wild brother once. One with a forty-three-year-long shadow.
